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Tag: Bill de Blasio

Seth Barron and Nicole Gelinas discuss the latest developments in New York City’s fight against the coronavirus, the impact of the city’s lockdown on future growth, and the response of state and local leaders.

As New York continues under lockdown, the effects of the coronavirus outbreak are becoming evident: the city’s death toll has passed 1,000, with more than 40,000 confirmed cases. In addition to health-care professionals, essential public employees like the city’s transit workers and NYPD officers are falling ill at a troubling rate. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have responded to the crisis with varying degrees of effectiveness, but the outbreak has revealed a lack of preparedness for a public-health emergency of this scale.

Rafael A. Mangual joins Seth Barron to discuss New York City’s plan to replace the jail complex on Rikers Island with four borough-based jails and what it could mean for public order in the city.

New York City jails currently house a daily average of about 8,000 people, in a city of 8 million residents. Under the new plan, the borough-based jails (once constructed) will be able to house 3,300 people—less than half the city’s average daily jail population today. As Barron writes, the new target “will likely require a significant realignment of expectations about public safety.”

Join Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America as they serve up the final martinis of the week. First, they welcome the whimpering conclusion of the pointless presidential campaign of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. They also pop the popcorn as as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says no senators support Beto O’Rourke’s mandatory buyback program for AR-15’s and other weapons and O’Rourke fires back by saying that Schumer has accomplished nothing on guns. And as the whistleblower story offers a few more details and now seems to feature Joe Biden, Jim expertly peels back the layers to discuss what Trump did, what Biden did and what it all means.

Corey Johnson, Speaker of the New York City Council, joins Seth Barron to discuss the state of New York City’s transit system and his plan to break up the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), allowing the city to take control of its buses, subways, bridges, and tunnels. According to Johnson, direct control of the MTA would enhance its responsiveness, accountability, and transparency.

Former public school music teacher - so I have a soft spot for teachers. Former real estate agent - so I have a soft spot for people in sales professions.
Retired after 31 years (internal audit, programming, project management) with a major financial services company. Wouldn't be PRUdent to mention the company. Now I can spend (almost) as much time as I want playing horn, piano and organ.
Prefer short posts and comments.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America welcome new polling showing that even in our bitterly divided, a strong majority of New Yorkers have a strongly negative opinion of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. They also slam Texas Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro for publicizing the names of San Antonio residents who have given the maximum contribution to President Trump’s re-election campaign and declaring they are funding a campaign of hate against Hispanic immigrants. And they roll their eyes as an MSNBC analyst insists President Trump is doing Neo-Nazis a huge favor by raising the American flag from half-staff on Thursday.

Known to students at the University of Chicago and NYU law schools as “the libertarian,” Richard Epstein has established himself as an expert in constitutional law, contracts, corporate law, real estate law, torts, labor law—and even Roman law. He is reputed to be more knowledgeable about Justinian’s Code than anyone since the Emperor Justinian himself. The Peter and Kirsten Bedford senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Richard Epstein is the author of several books including, The Cas… [more]

Bill de Blasio, the much-disliked mayor of New York City, has virtually no chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination for 2020. And it is a good thing, too, because his grandiose Workers’ Bill of Rights is a sure-fire recipe for economic disaster. His proposal tampers with every key feature of employment law.

Mayor de Blasio believes employment relationships are a zero-sum game, and he wants to strengthen the position of workers against their employers by kneecapping the latter. He insists that employers be required to provide paid family leave, pay higher wages, and to treat all temporary staff as “employees,” so that they too receive statutory protections. Additionally, his proposal mandates that employers may only terminate employees “for cause.” These recommendations, among other changes, would strengthen labor unions. To de Blasio, for workers to win, employers must lose. He wholly misses that by his proposal their fortunes are linked together in a lose-lose embrace.

Jim is back! Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America get a kick out of New Yorkers bluntly rejecting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2020 presidential bid but it does give Greg an idea of how to thin the 24-candidate field. They also applaud Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai for giving AT&T, Verizon and other carriers more latitude to block the robocalls flooding our cell phones. And they have a lot of fun with PETA’s ridiculous denunciation of former President Jimmy Carter of speciesism and a human-supremacist worldview because he likes to go turkey hunting.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to the U.S. shifting military resources to the Middle East to address an apparent threat against American forces by Iran. They’re also getting tired of Democrats refusing to accept the results of elections they obviously didn’t win, as Sen. Kamala Harris tells the NAACP that voter suppression is the only reason Democrats didn’t win governors’ races in Georgia and Florida and Joe Biden suggests states are bringing back Jim Crow laws to suppress the minority vote. And Jim walks through multiple reasons why virtually no one wants New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to run for president in 2020.

Nicole Gelinas joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss Mayor Bill de Blasio’s State of the City address, his aspiration to run for president in 2020, and his attempts to position himself as a national progressive leader.

“There’s plenty of money in the city—it’s just in the wrong hands,” de Blasio proclaimed in a speech loaded with tax-the-rich rhetoric. Since his first mayoral election in 2013, de Blasio has tried to position himself as a revolutionary. But in practice, Gelinas notes, he is “more old-school, big-city Democratic pragmatist than new-school, Democratic Socialist of America.”

City Journal contributing editor Howard Husock joins associate editor Seth Barron to discuss problems at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).

With some 400,000 residents, NYCHA is the nation’s largest public housing system. In recent years, news reports have documented extensive corruption at the agency along with chronic problems at NYCHA properties, including heating outages, broken elevators, high lead-paint levels, and vermin.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see South Korea’s president say North Korea is ready to give up nukes with no conditions, but wonder whether this is yet another ruse from Pyongyang. They also wonder why 175,000 Starbucks employees need racial sensitivity training because of a high-profile controversy at one franchise. And Jim has the perfect charity in mind for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio after tax returns show the mayor and his wife donated just $350 to charity in 2017.

E.J. McMahon and Seth Barron discuss recent corruption cases in New York and how the state government in Albany is attempting to revitalize struggling areas with “economic-development” programs.

Last month, Joseph Percoco, a former top aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo, was found guilty on corruption charges for accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from two companies. Percoco’s conviction reinforces the perception that New York politics operates on a “pay-to-play” model.

Richard Epstein analyzes a lawsuit several major cities are bringing against oil companies over climate change, explains the economic and scientific considerations necessary to seriously grapple with the issue, and describes the libertarian approach to environmental harms.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud President Trump’s strong defense of the value of Western civilization in his speech in Poland Wednesday. They also express disappointment in comments made by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey conceding Republicans failed to prepare a healthcare repeal and replace bill because they didn’t believe Trump would win the election. Finally, they decry New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for protesting President Trump in Germany in the midst of ongoing crises in his city.

Seth Barron joins Brian Anderson to discuss New York City politics, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first term, the relationship between de Blasio and Governor Cuomo, and the controversy surrounding this year’s Puerto Rican Day Parade.

“Surging tax revenues and the continued peace dividend from 20 years of vigorous Broken Windows policing have given Bill de Blasio a relatively easy first term in the mayor’s office,” notes Seth Barron in a recent story for City Journal. Indeed, as his first term in office winds down, de Blasio is an overwhelming favorite to win reelection this November. But for many New Yorkers who lived through Gotham’s worst days two and three decades ago, de Blasio’s election was a troublesome sign of how fragile the city’s success might be. His likely second term in office might expose more of that fragility.

Jon Gabriel (a.k.a., @ExJon on Twitter) is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet. He is a political writer and marketing consultant, contributing articles to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and USA Today among others. Until 2012, he served as Director of Marketing for the free-market Goldwater Institute, where he converted policy initiatives into compelling stories. In the private sector, Jon led marketing efforts for Cold Stone Creamery, Honeywell, and several technology companies. In his… [more]

Early Monday morning, Carey Gabay, an aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was shot in the head, apparently by a stray bullet; he is not expected to survive. As member kelsurprise notes on the Member Feed, both Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are already calling for additional gun control measures, despite New York already having some of the least gun-friendly laws in the country:

Seeing as Cuomo’s previous foray into more stringent gun laws bordered on delusional, I’m curious to know what additional measures he thinks will manage to address the criminal element responsible for the majority of gun violence here, while still “protecting the Second Amendment and legitimate gun owners.”